A strong brand is one of the few constants that cuts through the noise of today’s multichannel retail environment. When customers can buy almost anything, anywhere, a distinctive brand creates instant recognition, builds trust across online and offline touchpoints, and gives retailers a meaningful way to differentiate beyond price.
As retailers look ahead to new brand launches later in the year, we examine strategies to check if a brand or advertising strapline is available for use and, if so, secure appropriate legal protection; as well as drawing on some recent trends from brand registration and enforcement stories to point the way forward for retailers to stay at the top of their game.
The most sophisticated approach is to formalise a bespoke strategy and build brand and advertising clearance into product development processes early, treating it as a standard gateway before committing to packaging, marketing, or production costs. Integrating these decisions into formal product launch gateways ensures that legal risk, cost, and commercial strategy are balanced at the right stage of development.
If retailers find themselves already committed to a new brand without having checked it is available for use, though, it can still be worthwhile to run a search even at a late stage, as small tweaks to packaging or collateral can sometimes be sufficient to mitigate risk.
Structured approaches to brand and advertising clearance
Companies applied to register a record number of ca. 200,000 brands as trade marks in the UK in 2025 (up from ca. 170,000 in 2024), with more than 25,000 of those in the category containing retail services.
With so many brands being protected each year, and trade mark registrations being legally enforceable against new brand launches for five years even if they are not themselves in use, it is critical that retailers check the trade mark register well ahead of their product launch or risk being sued by an existing trade mark owner and forced to rebrand or retreat from the market. Simply Googling the new brand or asking ChatGPT if anyone else is already using it will clearly not suffice.
Clearance doesn’t need to be costly, and there are options from a quick identical-only check which might be appropriate for low prominence launches or borderline descriptive names, through to in-depth availability searches for major brand launches, which combine algorithmic data analysis with the professional opinion of an experienced legal advisor.
Advanced registration strategies
Retailers are increasingly looking beyond traditional word and logo brands and adopting more advanced brand registration strategies to safeguard distinctiveness across all consumer touchpoints. This can include protecting sonic branding, such as signature sounds used in advertising or app interactions, examples include the Netflix ‘tudum’ and the ‘Intel Inside’ noise; registering distinctive store layouts or presentation styles that shape the in‑store experience, such as the layout of an Apple store; and extending protection to virtual goods and services, ensuring that brand identities remain enforceable in emerging digital environments such as virtual stores or metaverse‑based retail. These ‘outside the box’ strategies help retailers future‑proof their brands and maintain control over how their identity appears across both physical and digital channels.
Lessons from recent trends in brand enforcement
1. Stronger infringement rights in visual marks
Thatcher’s successful enforcement of a trade mark registration for its cloudy lemon cider product packaging against Aldi’s Taurus-branded ‘lookalike’, as held by the Court of Appeal, shows the courts are increasingly recognising the damage that ‘dupe culture’ can inflict on reputed brands, which has historically been poorly provided for under English law.
Besides words and logos, retailers should consider incorporating trade mark or design registrations for the ‘look and feel’ of their product packaging, particularly where this is associated with a major commercial launch representing a significant investment for the company.
2. Pushback against weaponisation of the registration system
Findings that Lidl’s registration for a blank yellow circle within a blue square was overly broad and registered purely as a ‘legal weapon’ because this emblem was only ever used with its name ‘Lidl’ in the centre, and that Sky’s had overreached in registering its Sky brands for extraordinarily broad claims in categories that had nothing to do with its commercial activities (such as ‘bleaching preparations’ and ‘whips’), show that brands need to deploy IP registrations in a proportionate way to avoid findings that their registration and/or enforcement strategies are abusive.
As guidance issued by the UK Intellectual Property Office in 2025 states, Applicants should “ensure specifications represent fair and reasonable claims for their business” and “be ready to explain their commercial reasons if challenged on the scope of an application” by the authorities.
Key takeaways
In conclusion, it is important to remember the following:
- In the competitive retail landscape of 2026, registered trade marks are increasingly vital to protect and leverage the investment retailers make in their brands.
- Brand registration isn’t going to be necessary for every new product launch, but some form of clearance is a non-negotiable to avoid infringement and costly rebrands.
- Top retailers embed legal gateways for brand and advertising clearance and assessing the cost/benefit of registration into their product development pipelines.
- To maximise rights, retailers can consider ‘outside the box’ registration strategies including protecting their sonic branding, store layouts and virtual goods.
- Yet recent cases show legal overreach is a real risk and right owners need to be wary of heavy-handedness when registering and enforcing brands.
